predict, the government sanctions its motion tonight and they predict it will not pass although it'll be great mainland parliamentary historic occasion but in the end probably [inaudible] >> you do get the impression that this will not be even in the next few weeks the last big brexit vote. if this deal is debated tonight there will be further debate and further wrote in further controversy in the interesting question is what the cast of characters will be. >> we leave this coverage for the british parliament voting today on brexit and we show the debate on leaving here on c-span into this evening at 9:00 p.m. eastern and as the debate

continues this afternoon you can continue to watch live on our website, c-span .org. today is day 25 of the us government shut down in the senate expected to take up legislation to disapprove the treasury department loosening sections of the companies tied to russian oligarchs. taking life to the u.s. senate here on c-span2. my support for s.j. res. 2, a resolution of disapproval on lifting sanctions against the energy companies -- energy and aluminum companies ian plus and two others. to start with, from the beginning, the united states of america has had very good reasons for sanctions over deripaska. there are a number of significant national security risks at play. that is why repeatedly -- not just in the current administration but in prior administrations -- this individual has been deny add visa and why he has been personally sanctioned by the

treasury department. as a matter of fact, the treasury press release noted that deripaska, quote, has been investigated for money laundering, has been accused of threatening the lives of businessrrivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racquet tearing. these are not the qualifications of someone that should get relief from the united states. i appreciate the fact that his company has an enormous effect on the aluminum markets and i appreciate the efforts the treasury department has tried to make in restricting his control. but any businessperson knows that if you're taking an ownership position from 70% to 45%, and even with a voting power of 30%, you still control a company, particularly when this company was founded and the management team was all created by mr. deripaska. as we see continuing challenges

coming out of the russian government, as we continue to see continued efforts of mr. deripaska being one of vladimir putin's closest allies and closest cronies, we would send absolutely the wrong signal if we in this body were to remove these sanctions. just simply want to refer to my chairman of the intelligence committee, chairman burr, who has frequently pointed out that deripaska and his associates have come up a number of times in our senate intelligence committee's russia investigation. all those facts can't be laid out right here right now, but i strongly urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution that will come up later today that we don't send a significant that will that we are -- signal that we are for other purposes business with individuals of

deripaska deripaska's. with that, i yield the floor to my friend, the senator from texas. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, i would say to my friend from virginia, we both serve on the senate intelligence committee, and of course we've both been very intimately involved in the investigation about russian activities up to and including the 2016 election. but i would like to just point out the hypocrisy of our colleagues across the aisle who have refused to take up any legislation whatsoever, like the senate bill 1 that's on the floor, that would take extraordinarily positive measures to protect our most important allies in the middle east, including israel and jordan. they've filibustered that bill and said, well, we're not going to take up any legislation until the government is back open, all

100er -- all 100% of it. so for the past two weeks the minority leader has perillized the senate. a number of our colleagues have said, for example, the junior senator from virginia has said the senate should vote on nothing -- nothing else until we vote to reopen the government, period. senator merkley said, the senate's schedule cannot be business as usual if we shut down a quarter of the government and just leave it shut down. senator booker said, senate democrats should block consideration of all unrelated bills. all this comes as a result of the fact that the impetus is on the democrats to come forward and negotiate a resolution of the shutdown in good faith. but to this point, the speaker, ms. pelosi, and the minority leader, senator schumer, have simply refused to negotiate with the president. i was with the president down in

texas, down along the border, on thursday. he's willing to negotiated. we know that we've had broad, bipartisan support for the secure fence act, for example, in 2006, authorizing up to 800 miles of fencing on the southern border. the democratic leader voted for that. so did barack obama. so did hillary clinton. later in 2014, all democrats voted for $40 billion in border security, including barriers, fencing, tactical infrastructure along the border. now they are saying, as the speaker has said, that show this is immoral. well, this is hypocrisy at its worst. madam president, on another matter, today the senate

judiciary committee is holding a hearing on the nomination of william barr to be attorney general of the united states. mr. barr is uniquely qualified for this position, in large part because he held that job before. as a matter of fact, 27 years ago he was going through -- he was nominated by george herbert walker bush to be attorney general of the united states. he was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the senate. it received little fanfare at the time because it wasn't particularly controversial. nothing like the contentious, partisan confirmation battles we've seen the last two years. there wasn't an attempt -- at least so far -- i'm keeping my fingerprints crossed -- to assassinate mr. barr's character or to try to did he cipher notes in his high school yearbook, like we saw in the kavanaugh

hearings. and so far we've focused on his qualifications and he's clearly smart and articulate and able. he has a clear understanding of what the role of the attorney general is and, more importantly, what it is not. an attorney general should not be a politician. as a matter of fact, an attorney general has the very difficult job of trying to balance his responsibilities as a chief law enforcement officer in the country, enforcing the rule of law, along with the fact that he is a political athe pointee of the presidency. to me, that's one of the most difficult positions in the cabinet to hold. but mr. barr has done it before, and i think he can do it again. he, of course, has great institutional knowledge about the department of justice and he is he -- and in addition to attorney general, he's held assistant attorney general and then deputy attorney general before he was promoted to the top job. back in 1992 when mr. barr was confirmed, then-chairman of the

senate judiciary, joe biden, president obama's vice president, said that he would be a fine attorney general. this morning i heard mr. barr discuss the qualities that undoubtedly led senators on both sides of the aisle to support his confirmation. he spoke about acting with professionalism and integrity of he said, at 68 years old, after he's basically had decided to semi-retire, only to answer the call by the president to return to public service, he said, i am completely independent. i'll make the hard decisions. i'll make the right decisions. i'll help restore the reputation of the department of justice and the f.b.i. to an apolitical, a nonpolitical department, which is exactly what we need. he wants to make sure that the character and reputation of the department of justice is enhanced and restored and then maintained and that it could

withstand even the most trying political times, including those in which we presently live. and of serving with independence, he said, providing no promises or assurances to anyone or anything other than to faithfully execute and administer the laws of the united states of america. it's clear to me, he maintains the same views he did back 27 years ago. and i share his view that the department of justice should function outside of the highly politicized times that we live in. and that's that the fair and impartial administration of justice is the highest obligation and duty of this position. so i believe mr. barr will be an outstanding nominee and then, once confirmed, will be an outstanding attorney general. i look forward to voting yes on his nomination. madam president, on the matter of the government shutdown, the 25% of the government which is presently not funded, last week

i traveled with the president, along with my colleague, senator cruz, to the rio grande valley to mcallen, texas. after the president held his roundtable, where he saw heroin, methamphetamine, and weapons and heard about the human trafficking, including sex slavery for children and for girls and women, after that presentation, after the president left, senator cruz and i sat down with a number of our constituents, county judges, mayors, law enforcement officers, as well as the folks from border patrol and customs and border protection. they understand the border better than anybody because they live there. they -- they are deeply concerned about the posturing in washington and how the political arguments seem to overcome logic and listening to the experts

when it comes to border security. and i was glad for them to confirm what -- once again p what they have previously told me, that what we need to do to strengthen those border communities and to keep our country safe, while keeping legitimate trade and commerce flowing across the border. during our discussion, scott luck, deputy cleave of the border patrol, talked about the positive impact that physical barriers and what positive impact they have at targeted locations along the southern border. he said, the physical barrier has worked every place i've seen. i've been in places where they did not have it. they put it in, and it worked. he mentioned douglas, arizona, as one of those. he said, there were more people coming into the country there than at any other place in the united states. i was there. it stopped. it stopped in california. it stopped in yuma. it stopped in el paso. it will stop wherever we put it.

despite what our colleagues across the aisle are saying, physical barriers at the border can be effective when coupled with technology and personnel. it doesn't do you much good to have a physical barrier that somebody can go over or around or through and you don't have a border agent there to detain them and actually the physical border is the last place you're going to stop people trying to illegally enter into the united states, together with the n.r.a. cot tykes and the human -- together with the narcotics and the human trafficking. but it is important to have those tools available to the border patrol. that's what chief deputy luck was centuriesing. he made the commonsense obligation that physical barriers alone are not the solution for the entire border. a holistic border security approach also requires tech million to and personnel. when we were discussing the need for building barriers in strategic locations, my friend, eddy travinio, said something

that i think encapsulates the whole debate. he was talking to the border patrol and c.b.p. he said, if you tell us where you need it i think we're all onboard. if politicians tell us where we need it, i think that's where we have our concern. in other words, what the judge was saying is, let's listen to the experts, the people that know how to use the right combination of technology and barriers along the border. anybody who's ever been to the border between the united states and mexico knows the geography and topography vary tremendous from place to place. so let's not try to dictate from washington, d.c., where every dollar goes and in so doing try to micromanage the border patrol and customs and border protection and the department of homeland security. let's leave that to the experts.

the men and women who work to protect and secure our border every day. what we continue to hear and what i continue to advocate is the for a layered approach, barriers where they're appropriate, technology, and personnel. that's exactly what we've been talking about. that's what we voted for in 2006 with the secure border fence act. the democrats supported it along with republicans. it's what law enforcement officers tell us they need to operate optimally. and, unfortunately, it's what democrats are now refusing to negotiate and provide. but when looking at the border, it is not just about physical security we need to be concerned. we need to be concerned about our economic security as well. so during our discussions last week with local stakeholders, we also focused on the importance of facilitating legitimate trade and travel at our ports of entry.

i was shocked by this figure, but the customs and border protection officer there, mr. higgerson, mentioned that trade from texas ports alone are valued at $300 billion per year. for the state of texas and border communities in particular, these ports fuel our economy, and we need to provide additional funding to ensure a sufficient movement across the border. and one thing we all agree on is that most of the high-end drugs, the heroin, the methamphetamine, and the fentanyl come through the ports of entry. so let's modernize those. let's provide the technology needed in order to stop the flow of that poison into the united states. trade, legitimate trade in commerce is the lifeblood not only of the border region in my state, it's also the lifeblood of our nation's economy. five million americans depend -- their jobs depend on binational trade with mexico alone. along with a number of colleagues from texas, we are

sending a bipartisan letter to trump thanking him for his continued work to secure our southern border. his advocacy for that layered approach as well as for port of entry improvements is vital to my state. in that letter, we also address recent rumors to the effect that u.s. army corps of engineers funds might be used for border security purposes, and i have urged the president not to take that route. while i'll continue to advocate for additional border security, i believe those funds were intended to support disaster relief and should be used for that purpose. we need both border security and to lend a helping hand to those who are still recovering from natural disasters. we don't have to rob from peter to pay paul. we need to do both. i'm grateful for the support shown by the president to the people of texas, both in the days following hurricane harvey's landfall and in the

nearly year and a half since, and i hope he will continue to work with all of my texas colleagues and me as we work to rebuild our communities impacted by hurricane harvey and as we work together to secure our border. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. carper: would the senator yield for a moment? mr. cornyn: i will. mr. carper: i want to thank him for his comments. senator cornyn lives down on the border. at least his state is on the border. he is well familiar with that part of the world. as it turned out as the former chairman of the homeland security committee, i have had the chance to visit the border in your state and other states along the mexican border. there were a lot of mexicans coming into the united states and not so many mexicans going back into mexico. in the year 2000 when border illegal immigration peaked, huge numbers of mexicans coming in. today not so much. as you know, they are coming in

from honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. i am a huge advocate of border security. i think fencing makes sense in a lot of places. we have hundreds of miles of fencing. a lot of places, roads alongside fencing makes sense. we have very sophisticated stillance equipment. we can look from different platforms, drones, fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, stationary towers, mobile towers. we can look down 20, 25 miles in a mexico. we can pick up people coming from the south. there is a lot of stuff that makes sense. i'm all for investing there. i think democrats and republicans can find common ground there, and i think we have. if we look at the appropriations bill we passed that will actually fund that kind of stuff. it's not just a democratic idea, not just a republican idea. those are good ideas. a lot of them come from our border patrol personnel, as you know. but we could do all that and more on the southern border in mexico, but if people in

honduras and guatemala and el salvador continue to live lives of misery we are implicit in because of our addiction to drugs, they are going to still want to come up here. so we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. also address through alliance through prosperity to provide a little bit of hope and opportunity so they will feel less compelled to come to this country. thank you. mr. cornyn: madam president. if i could just respond to my friend, the senator from delaware. he speaks correctly and accurately about, i think, some of the symptoms and some of the -- some of the cures that we need to put in place to deal with this extraordinary, spectacles problem, and we will be -- we would love to continue to work with him on coming up with something -- we may want to call it not plan mexico, but plan americas, because really what we have to deal with is a regional challenge, and he's

exactly right. most of the illegal immigration now is coming from central america. and because of gaps in our immigration and human trafficking laws, it -- it encourages unaccompanied children and family units to come up to the border because they can essentially get placed in the united states while they wait for their asylum claim to be determined by a court. and there is a backlog of 700,000 or 800,000 asylum players. in other words, the criminal organizations that move people for money into the united states, they have cracked the code and they have figured out how to be successful in placing people in the united states, but unfortunately it also helps enrich those organizations which move the poison from -- from south of the border into the united states that contributed to the deaths of some 70,000 americans last year alone. and i'm thinking particularly about the fentanyl coming from china to mexico and up across

the border, along with the heroin. 90% of it comes from mexico that's consumed in the united states. and i agree it's the demand here in the united states that enriches the cartels, but they are more or less commodity agnostic. in other words, they will do anything that makes them money, these criminal organizations. we need to have people sit down and work together. i pledge to work with my colleague to try to do that, but we can't get a solution as long as the speaker of the house calls -- calls physical infrastructure or barriers immoral. that's kind of a nonstarter to a conversation that we need to have to try to negotiate our way out of this shutdown. so i would welcome working with my friend. mr. hoeven: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: madam president, i would like to extend my thoughts in regard to the comments made

by the senior senator from texas and the need for border security. i appreciate his comments. but i rise to take a minute today to recognize the incredible achievements of the north dakota state university bison football team today. on january 5, they earned their record seventh national championship title. that's seven out of the last eight years they have been national champions. in a hard-fought victory, ndsu defeated the eastern washington university eagles by a score of 38-24 in frisco, texas. and with that win, the bison now have won an unprecedented seventh ncaa division one football championship series championship, setting a record for the most f.c.f. titles of

all time. the bison now that total of 15 ncaa championship titles. in addition, the team completed the 2018 football season with a perfect record of 15 wins and zero losses. displaying an extraordinary resilience and skill. this achievement puts the 2018 bison truly in elite company, becoming only the fifth team to cap off an undefeated season with a national championship title. 2018 joins -- the 2018 team joins the 2013 ndsu team in accomplishing this impressive feat. further, at issue -- ndsu is one of only five teams to win back-to-back titles. ndsu is the holder of the longest title winning streak in ndsu history with five titles in a row from 2011 to 2015. they have been victorious in

every f.c.s. title game that they have played. after the title game, ndsu quarterback is now ndsu's record holder for the most passing yards with a total of 8,693 passing yards in his college career. he also became the ncaa record holder for most all-time f.c.s. wins by a quarterback, with a total of 49 career wins. i'd also like to recognize the impressive achievements of ndsu head football coach chris clyman. during his five years as head coach, he led the bison to an outstanding record of 69 wins with only six losses. winning four national championships in the process. coach clyman's achievements of four titles in five years equals the ncaa f.c.s. record for most

titles of a head coach. the coach and his entire staff instilled character, perseverance to the members of the ndsu bison football team. and while i know it's bittersweet, i'm sure that bison nation will join me in wishing coach clyman the best of luck as he continues his career as the new head coach of the kansas state university wildcats next season. and we want to welcome matt entz as the new head coach. formerly defensive coordinator. so he has certainly been part of this great dynasty and is now actually the head coach. and finally i want to recognize all of bison nation for their vibrant and unwavering support of the team during another successful season. as they have grown accustomed to doing, the welcoming residents of frisco, texas, saw a mass of

bison fans flock to their town for the f.c.s. championship game. they are warm and wonderful in terms of their hospitality. approximately 20,000 fans traveled from north dakota to support our great team and other areas as well, turning the stadium into a sea of green and yellow as they passionately cheered on our beloved bison. the bison victory was a victory not only for the ndsu football team but for the entire state as the team brought yet another trophy back home to north dakota. i congratulate the team, the coaches, and our great, great fans on another national championship. go bison! so with that, madam president, again, i'm so proud of our great team and appreciate the opportunity to take this time to recognize their achievements, and with that, i yield the

floor. i particularly am pleased to yield it to my fellow senator from north dakota. mr. cramer: thank you, madam president. thank you to my friend and colleague, senator hoeven. let me first before i get into my prepared comments associate myself with his words, his eloquent appreciation and congratulations to the folks at ndsu, to the football team. and let me just say, i don't care what president trump says. at bison nation, we never get tired of winning. with that, madam president, i rise today for the first time as a member of this prestigious body, as a united states senator, to talk about a critical issue that faces our nation, and that is every citizen's right to life. it's no coincidence that i rise today, the week of the march for life. this coming friday is the 46th annual march for life where citizens from across the country and hundreds from north dakota,

especially students from places like shandley high school and university of mary and other institutions around our state will unite to fight against the largest, deadliest and most silent war this world has ever known. this, my colleagues, is the war against the unborn. during my time in the house of representatives the last six years and throughout my campaign for senate last year, i promised the people of north dakota that i would fight for life at all stages. today i unite with those who will march this friday, who will walk with heavy and hopeful hearts, and who pray for the 60 million discarded children who have been denied their very first breath. colleagues, i stand here today to call to mind a child's right to life and protection within the womb of his or her mother. since roe v. wade, which the supreme court decided in 1973, over 60 million children have been denied their right to life. 60 million children have been refused love, comfort, a hug,

care, opportunity, and breath. they were torn from experiencing the beauty of the world that we are so fortunate to see. they were torn from family and unknown friends. to deny 60 million innocent children the right to these things is the highest injustice to our people and the highest offense to our god. and i speak on behalf of the citizens of north dakota and all citizens who will gather this week to say that it is absolutely unacceptable that within this country, life is treated as a commodity rather than a gift from an omnipotent creator. some of my pro-choice colleagues and friends may say that in taking this stance, i'm standing against women's rights. nothing could be further from the truth. that this is an issue of woman's rights. well, it's an issue for the millions of women who have been denied the right to life. and i fully support women's

rights. i just begin supporting them nine months earlier than some of my colleagues on the other side of this important issue. to my colleagues who are pro-life or supportive of this fight, i remind them that abortion is a great injustice, but it is particularly common in situations, in communities that have suffered other injustices.o be pro-life, i think we must pro all of life and address factors that cause women to decide to end the life of their unborn children. the united states has seen a great evil throughout its history. we've seen slavery, discrimination, human trafficking, all of these things illegal and these things are issues which we as a country take a moral stance. however, abortion is legal. 60 million lives have been ended legally in our country. here in washington,d.c., nearly 40% of pregnancies end in abortion.

in new york city, an african american child is more likely to be aborted than born. as one nation under god, we as a country should know better. we must know better. and i believe we do know better. no government should limit the lives of its youngest and most innocent citizens. as a senator, i give you my promise to fight for life and i ask my colleagues to join me. this is my promise to the people of north dakota who have chosen me as their senator, and my promise to my fellow citizens, especially those who have never had the chance to speak with their voices. within my first few weeks here, i've signed on to several pro-life priorities. i've signed a letter asking president trump to veto any legislation that undermines the right to life. additionally, i cosponsored the protect funding for women's health care act, a bill that would end federal funding for planned parenthood and shift that money to women's health services. in north dakota, we don't have any planned parenthood clicks,

but we have 16 community health centers and over 20 federally certified health centers. shifting this money toward these health centers would help the women in my state receive better and more accessible health care. let me say that again. shifting funding away from the abortion clinics and towards these community health centers would provide more funds to the health centers that care for women across the state of north dakota. additionally, i cosponsored that no testimony funding for abortion and abortion insurance full disclosure act and the title 10 prohibition act, two bills to protect the taxpayer from funding the abortion industry. i cosponsored the born alive abortion survivors protection act, which would guarantee that a child that survives an abortion will receive the same medical care as a premature child of the same age. and the child interstate notification act which protects the rights of parents to be notified if their child is going to have an abortion. finally, i cosponsored the pain

capable unborn child protection act which would ban abortion after 20 weeks. my fellow senators, i stand here because of the citizens of north dakota and of the united states who desire to see these bills and many other important pro-life bills passed and signed into law. they want an end to this injustice. i recognize my responsibility to fight for the youngest most vulnerable members of our society and our future generations. so today i stand with my constituents and with the entire population of the united states, especially the men and women who have been robbed of their right to life. and so i urge you to take a stand on this pressing issue as well. with our united efforts, the killing of our unborn citizens will continue to diminish. our work is fruitful. every legislative session we see more and more lives passed at the state level that protect unborn life. from 2008 to 2014 the abortion rate in the united states has dropped 25%. each year we're making great

strides in giving a voice to the voiceless. this fight is not a political fight but a fight for humanity itself. it is a war against all of us and against all of our children no matter our ideologies. we have to learn to prioritize this issue in our own parties and work across the aisle. we have to look at each other with open minds and open hearts, to solve this crisis that has plagued our country. we must do better at reaching out and uniting with one another in defense of one of the most fundamental rights. the right to life. the truth is this, we must uphold this right because, quote, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed at the time of creation by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. without the first, that is the right to life, we can have neither liberty nor pursue happiness. we've been denying the first for

far too long, so let's join together now to give the future of our country, our next generations the right to life. madam president, with that i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: thank you, madam president. i'd like to commend my fellow senator from north dakota on his heartfelt comments today and express my support and agreement with him and with those comments. he mentioned a number of pieces of legislation that he's cosponsoring. i'm pleased to see that. and i, again, signed on to legislation to support life in this congress as i have in previous congresses. this week we will have the march for life at the end of the week. i look forward to that. last year my wife and her sister actually walked in the march for life, and i've always made a practice of greeting our

participants in march for life from north dakota. and i certainly look forward to seeing them again here this year. so with that, madam president, i thank you for this time to make those comments. but again, to extend a warm welcome to my colleague from north dakota. i worked with him for many years, and i very much look forward to working with him now here in the senate. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: madam president, the first -- last week floor speech i gave on the first common sense for common defense, i highlighted the fact

that our competitors have increased their military spending and focused on modernization. we're going to have to do the same. when i talk about competitors, i'm talking about china and russia. i think this president did a good job of outlining or national defense system and putting it in different categories because when you talk about china and russia, not many people are aware of this, but china and russia have increased all during the years that we have decreased, and they have actually caught up, in some cases actually passed us. our men and women in uniform are outstanding representations of what's right in america. they drive -- their drive and determination is the reason the united states of america has the honor of being a leader of the free world. that honor, however, is the product of hard work, not birthright. we earned it. but over the last ten years our military supremacy has slowly

degraded. general dunnford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has acknowledged that our qualitative and quantative advantage has eroded. toward the end of the obama administration, in the case of many of our systems like our brigade combat teams, were only 35% of those could be deployed because of what happened to the defense budget, our maintenance capabilities. the same thing happened to our army aviation brigades, the same thing happened to our f-18's, the marines that fly the f-18's. and we only had 30% of those that could be deployed toward the end of the obama administration. now our -- this is something that people are not aware of. if there's ever any question, if you would take -- this is very significant, madam president. we need to pay attention to this because if you take constant

dollars, defense spending, dropped $200 billion from 2010 to 2015, that was the last five years of the obama administration, and in 2010 the budget was $794. and then five years later it dropped down to 596. that's unprecedented, even after the korean war it didn't drop that much. but nonetheless, it did, and it's never happened before, and we have to make up for it now. that's exactly what we're doing. our fiscal year 2018 budget brought it back up to $700 billion. the 2019 budget brought it back up to, from $216 billion. and we anticipate in our 2020

budget it's going to be around $750 billion. we have a slide here that puts it in a little different perspective because it shows we didn't -- as you can see from the slide, at the end of the cold war we had about the same number of fighter aircraft as our adversaries of our time. that was russia and china. it's very clear on this, the orange are the third generation fighters. the blue, the fourth generation fighters. it shows now we're getting into the fifth generation. but at that time we were way ahead of them. this is a thing of the past now. while we had the same amount, we were still superior because our aircraft were newest and most capable in the world. our fighter aircraft, in fact most of our military equipment was better, more modern, more effective than the russians had

or than the chinese had. that's changed. now during the period of time, we went through about ten years of not increasing the quality and the numbers stayed the same. so we got into a position where many of the things that the chinese and the russians had were better than what we had. now as demonstrated on the chart, our fighter force reduced nearly 50% in total numbers over the last 25 years, and we failed to modernize. the secretary of the air force, heather wilson, said our air force is too small to do what the nation asks. so not only is it too small, but the average age of our aircraft is now 28 years old. how many of us in here drive a car that's 28 years old? in 1990 we brought over 500 aircraft a year. 1990, 500 aircraft a year, but

recently that number has been reduced to 50 a year. when i go out and talk to people in my state of oklahoma and anywhere around the country, there is the assumption that somehow we are, we have the very best of everything. and that used to be the case. that became the case after world war ii. but then during the last ten years is when things dropped down. we're going to have to do better because at this rate it would take us over 40 years to modernize a fleet that is already too old and too small. meanwhile, our adversaries have transformed their aircraft fleets with modernization programs and increased their overall size and capabilities. in fact, chinese and russian air forces have recapitalized and now or soon will be fielding aircraft with capability matching our own at a faster rate. if they get to the point where we are in terms of modernization, they are already way ahead of us in terms of

number. according to the chief of staff of the air force, general goldfine, if we take no action the russian and chinese forces will be bigger and more technologically advanced to us. and we know this is true. artillery is measured in terms of rapid fire and range, and that's where we are getting, we're falling behind them. the problem is not just the air force but the army, likewise, has gotten smaller and less capable in the same decade, specifically in terms of long-raining fires as defined as two artillery and tactical missiles. you can see the same trend. this is our artillery system, three different types of artillery. you can see now as time has gone by we have actually fallen behind. if you look at us over here in the total of 2,886 as opposed to 22,000, the russians and 10,000

the chinese. the numbers are there. we know that's happening. we know that it's taking place as we speak. and the -- in the last 25 years we've kind of rested on the advantage that we had things that were better than they had. while our adversaries have also reduced the amount of long-range fires over the same peefortd, they have significant -- same period of time they have significant limo dernzed their force. -- significantly modernized their force. we are now in a situation where russia and china not only have more artillery than us, theirs is better than ours. l general mark milley, the army chief of staff, said in terms of artillery, the army is outgunned and outranged by our adversaries. unfortunately people don't know this, and people are going to have to know this to know what happened to us in the last decade. one can look at the devastating results from russia's action against the ukrainian army. we all remember in 2014 they

made it possible through the modernization of their artillery systems. and the results were there. they won. they inflicted damage. recognizing the problem is normally the first step in developing an acceptable solution. in the fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019 budgets, they got us back in the right direction, but we have gone up in fiscal years 2018 to $700 billion for our defense budget. and fiscal -- up to $716 billion. we're on the road to recovery. we recognize that the people in this body know what's happened to our abilities and our superiority in these areas that is no longer there. this is kind of interesting. we had a hearing on this the other day. of all the presentations that

i've heard, the assessment and recommendation of the national defense strategy commission, that's what this book is right here. this was put together just a few years ago, and they have actually made these assessments, and they have come to the conclusion that if we want to do something, okay, you will get their attention in a minute, madam president. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. inhofe: good job. and that's coming from a brand-new senator. anyway, what they've come up with is a formula as to what it's going to take us right now and for the foreseeable future. they say all of our defense budgets coming up will have to be an increase of 3% and 5% above inflation, and, of course, that's exactly what these three

years will do. so we are making headway in that respect. this -- this -- this growth projection is also one of our secretary of defense, as well as our chairman of the joint chiefs of staff say will be necessary for us to get back up even with and competitive with both russia and china. you know, i can remember not long ago being in the south china sea and watching china do their -- they are actually building islands. it's not legal, but they do it anyway. and if you look at what's on these seven islands out there, it's as if they are preparing for world war iii and our adversaries and our allies in the south china sea are very much concerned about this and -- as to where we, you know, who's side they are going to be on if this happens. so, anyway, we don't want to shortchange our national security. we fully implement the national

defense strategy that's found in this book in a timely manner by voting continuing resolutions and eliminating the threat of sequestration. continuing resolutions is something where if we don't get along in this body and don't pass our appropriation bills as we're supposed to pass them, then we end up passing a continue resolution that continues what we've done in the previous year. we can't continue to do that. we are already widening the gap with russia and chinese will only grow faster if we don't change our behavior. we need to fix this if we're going to do it. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. a senator: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the following senators be recognized to speak for up to seven minutes each. the presiding officer: the senate is in -- a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the following senators be recognized to speak for up to seven minutes each, senator isakson, senator menendez and senator crapo. followingthe use or yielding back of time, senator schumer be recognized to make a motion to proceed to s.j. res. 2 and that following his remarks, senator mcconnell be recognized to make a motion to table the

motion to proceed following his remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. crapo: thank you. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. crapo: thank you. madam president, i rise to speak today against the resolution to disapprove of the president -- of the administration's agreement to delist rusal, the russian aluminum the giant, from the s.d.n. list. i will vote no today because this was a hard-fought negotiation resulting in one of the strongest agreements ever, which supports long-standing u.s. sanctions policy and foreign policy toward russia. this agreement does nothing to change the sealed fate of deripaska, the direct target of the sanctions.

he remains sanctioned. his current assets remain blocked. the primary and secondary sanctions imposed against him dash any hope of future deals or income either by operation of his divestiture operations for future dividends based on his remaining shareholder interests in rusol. his ability to transfer his shares, ice his shares sasse collateral or even receive cash from i finds did are all effectively frozening. the cents per gallons which put deripaska on the s.d.n. list and froze his investments in ru some of the l and in two other companies make him personally radioactive to future transactions with just about anyone. but force his companies to disentangle themselves from deripaska's control and influence or to face financial devastation. the treasury agreement

appropriately reflects how u.s. sanctions policy uses smart sanctions to change the behavior of those sanctioned, to build pressure behind the ultimate goals of u.s. policy towards putin's russia. the agreement is more akin to a deferred prosecution agreement in that a failure in its terms can result in immediate relisting to the s.d.n. list. while it ensures that en-plus, ru some of the l and e.s.e. undertake corporate governance changes to reverse the circumstances that led to his designation in the first place. this includes reducing deripaska's direct and indirect shareholder stakes, overhauling the relevant board of directors which control the companies' operations and strategic direction, restricting the steps that can be taken related to their governance, and agreeing to broad and unprecedented

transparency that requires ongoing auditing. certification, and reporting requirements. part of keeping a smart sanctions program smart is to ensure that the world understands the united states sanctions architecture is fair and that it respects america's extraterritorial sanctions reach and provides an off ramp for the s.d.n. list -- for those list who had can prove deserving. one that is not only good sanctions policy but the law because if treasury fails in its ability to render fair judgments,ers while petitions will either resort to u.s. courts or to evasion. in the circumstances of this case, keeping r usol on the sanctions list could lead to a putin nationalization of the aluminum industry which would not only work to enrich deripaska but all but guarantee the unfettered kremlin influence

in a global concern that would also invite a set of unintended consequences involving wider economic and security costs for our nation and for our economic allies. so today i'm voting against senator schumer's resolution to disapprove the administration's agreement to delist ru some of the l, the russian aluminum giant, from the s.d.n. list because treasury spent the last eight months getting it right and winning a hard-fought divestiture agreement. it is among the most robust and verifiable delisting determinations ever devised by treasury, worthy of senate approval and not a gift to the kremlin. thank you, madam chairwoman. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mends -- mr. menendez:madam president, i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: i come to the floor in support of resolution 2, expressing disapproval of the trump administration's desire to control sanctions imposed by deripaska. the senate has until thursday to block this, hence the urgency

of this vote. if we wait, then under the law we lose this important opportunity. mr. deripaska is a notorious kremlin crony who may have played a role in the government attacks during the 2016 presidential election cycle. at this point we simply do not know enough about his potential involvement in the cyberattacks in mallining influence campaigns carried out by the kremlin on the american people and we will not find out until we see the full report of robert mueller's completed investigation. until then i am not comfortable with any measure that diminishes sanction pressure on a powerful russian oligarch with deep ties to vladimir putin, including this recent deal agreed to by the treasury department. i'm a strong believer in the power of sanctions to incentivize behavioral change in

support of our foreign policy priorities. i also deeply respect the skill, expertise and dedication of the career officials of the treasury department who administer many of our sanctions against russia. nonetheless, the proposed deal before us is seriously flawed. first, we must be clear that it is not the american people, but rather oleg deripaska who would benefit handsomely from this arrangement. after his partial divestment in en-p plus, the treasury department would have allowed deripaska to use a portion of his shares to pay a very sizable debt to a russian bank called v.t.b. so with the deal, deripaska's overall balance sheets significantly improves. this massive benefit to

deripaska alone is enough to question the merits of this deal. moreover, v.t.b., the bank, the russian bank, is already on u.s. s.e.c. -- sectoral sanctions list related to the invasion of the eastern ukraine. by allowing v.t.b. to participate in this agreement the treasury department is undermining our overall sanctions regime. in effect, the administration is signaling to every entity and individual that has had u.s. sanctions imposed in response to russia's aggression against ukraine that they can continue to undermine a sovereign nation without consequences. finally, this deal allows deripaska to maintain a 44.9% ownership of en plus. while this falls below the treasury department's automatic 50% threshold for ownership, it's still too high.

perhaps deripaska has given up control in a legal sense and technical sense, but make no mistake, he will be the largest shareholder in en plus. he will have the ability to appoint one-third of its board members and he will continue to leverage his network of cronies to influence the conduct of this company. he also has family members that independently will have shares. at the end of the day he will direct this company's future. i find that unacceptable, and we should all find it unacceptable. no one can deny that we debate this resolution in an increasingly dire context. on top of the indictments and pleas piling up in relation to the trump campaign's interaction with russian officials or efforts to cover up those interactions, court filings recently reveal that former trump campaign chairman paul

manafort shared polling data with constantine clinton -- con constantine. he has served as a go between for manafort and oleg. these latest revelations remind us again that we have more questions than answers about the relationships between the president's associates and the kremlin. if that news was not disturbing enough, this past weekend "the new york times" reported that the f.b.i. opened a counter intelligence investigation into the president in part after he fired the f.b.i. director because of an, and i quote, this russia thing. this russia thing. let that sink in. senior officials at the f.b.i., americans deeply committed to the hierarchy of law

enforcement, saw enough evidence to suspect that donald trump, the sitting president to the united states, could be an agent of the russian government. that's stunning. it's absolutely stunning. likewise, over the weekend the press reported that president trump went to extraordinary lengths to conceal the contents of his conversations with vladimir putin in helsinki and elsewhere, even going as far as tearing up the notes of his interpreter. his own staff reportedly sought to learn the contents of the conversation only to be told that the interpreter could not share the details because the president told him not to. now i raised serious questions as the ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee about what happened in helsinki. i think the nation was stunned by seeing the president's performance there.

and we wanted to know and bring the interpreter forward or to get access to those notes. now we know those notes were destroyed. throughout this presidency, my colleagues and i have demanded accountability from this administration. i've been dismayed at the lack of calculator -- clarity from the president when it comes to dealing with foreign leaders particularly vladimir putin. president trump has had numerous conversations with president xi of china and other leaders across the world but not aware of the same standard of secrecy being applied to those exchanges. the president seems to only keep secret his conversations with putin. and that begs the question, why? perhaps because trump and his 26 campaign staff have repeatedly lied about the extent of their interactions with the russians.

perhaps because the trump-putin discussions extended to russian financing for the trump organization's real estate deals throughout the 1990's and 2000's or the moscow tower project we now know the trump organization was still pursuing well into 2017. not advocating on behalf of the american people. perhaps because the president inappropriately shared classified information with putin much like when he did when foreign minister lavrov met him for a meeting in the oval office. we just don't know, and we have a right to find out. so i ask that my entire comments be included in the record, ending asking my colleagues to vote in favor of moving forward so that this can come to light. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president, if the gentleman would like to finish his remarks, i will be glad to yield a few extra

minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: i thank my distinguished colleague from diswravment, a member of the -- from georgia, a member of the committee. as i said, we don't know and we have a right to find out. our own f.b.i. is apparently worried he may actually be a foreign agent. now presidents certainly have a right to confidential conversations with world leaders, but never before in our history have we had a president under investigation by the f.b.i. for being a foreign agent, an agent of the russian federation. with that in mind, i think we have the right, the responsibility, and the obligation to ensure we know what happened in all these conversations between president trump and putin and to understand the full extent of this relationship. i sent a letter to the president today with the ranking members of the armed services and intelligence committees demanding the preservation of

all records associated with these meetings and the opportunity to interview the interpreters. this is a matter of u.s. national security. madam president, this trump-russia connection gets more con founding by the day. we have to protect the integrity of all oversight efforts including the objectives sober investigation being conducted by robert mueller. we must take all measures necessary to protect this investigation including a rock-solid commitment by the president's nominee for attorney general to not interfere in any way with mr. mueller's work, and the american people deserve to know who they elected to be their president and what is going on in this regard. so again, it's time to move to legislation on dsca which senator graham and i introduced with others. i think if this body is serious about protecting our institutions, our democracy, of standing up to an increasingly emboldened kremlin, if we're serious about defending the constitution, number one, we agree to move

forward on this question, and that we move forward to find out the rest of the information. i still reiterate, i ask unanimous consent that all my statements be included in the record, and i appreciate the distinguished gentleman's opportunity. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: madam president, i wasn't going to come over here today. i just got off an airplane a little bit ago. but i'm here because of what i've been hearing. what i've been hearing is that we need to be talking about the shutdown, and when i remember the t.s.a. agents on my plane that were flying here and others, they said why don't you get our work back for us. we're not even talking about t.s.a. we're not even talking about a shutdown. we're talking about different opinions at different times and different things that don't really matter in the scheme of things. i appreciate what the distinguished chairman of the foreign relations committee just said, but quite frankly, in the last week he was talking

about how important it was for us to stay on the shutdown and not do anything else. now the leader on the minority side is saying it's important for us to get this russian gentleman, or oligarch, whatever that is, that we're already punishing, punished and then we'll go back to the shutdown. my point is this, there is only one thing we need to be doing. restoring the confidence of the american people in the united states senate and the united states house. they don't have it right now and we haven't given them anything to hang their hat on. not a single thing. we've been shut down now for 23, 24 days. i'm not a johnny come lately part of the reference to the issue of shutdowns. i've been in the senate and the house 20 years. i voted against five shutdowns, every one i had a chance to. the shutdowns cost the government more money. they don't save the government money. they don't solve any single problem whatsoever. even when you mask them by shutting down a little bit of the government, not much of the government is shut down, just the part that hurts the smallest

income earners from our government, we're just doing the wrong thing, punishing the wrong people and it's not right. all the speeches you're going to hear today, including mine, it doesn't matter any at all unless we, first of all, get on the shutdown, correct the problem, find out a way to bridge the gap. the president is not moving. the democrats aren't moving. the majority leader is not moving. and we're not doing much. and that doesn't solve anything. so if somewhere along the line we've got to agree to find a way to do something different. it may not be the end deal but it will be the bridge to do an end deal. or else we're all going to look silly. the truth of the matter is everybody in this negotiation right now is sitting in their office or sitting talking to some people having a beer or doing whatever saying how are we going to stick them -- meaning the other party -- and get this shutdown over for our people -- before our people drive us crazy? we're caught in our own trap, and things like what we're debating this afternoon emanate that. this oligarch who has a huge

investment in the the biggest, largest aluminum company in russia is being divested of his interest down from about 75% to 45%. my home country of sweden, one of the largest consumers of their product in aluminum and one of the biggest sellers of aluminum to the united states of america y'all are killing us. we've driven him down and we've got more things to do. they're losing their vote. i think their vote is down to 25% now. and they've restricted him every way you can. i'm a businessman. i know how you redistrict people and tie them down. this -- restrict people and tie them down. this bill gives them a lot of what they don't want. i want to appeal to everybody listening to this, all my colleagues, we all play political jokes, talk about the republicans did this, democrats did that. but the fact of the matter is we're not doing a damned thing while the american people are

suffering. the t.s.a. agents i talked to in atlanta today, they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart because a lot of their guys and ladies are not showing up for work and there's going to be more of them. we've bot a super bowl coming to atlanta -- we've got a super bowl coming to atlanta, georgia in about three weeks, the biggest tourism event in the world this year. what if the largest airport in the world goes on strike? then you've just cost millions of dollars to the united states of america, my home city of atlanta and others. and there are thousands of examples just like that. i've had three people from my state call me h.o.v. conventions coming up in one of our cities that this loss of effort by the government, because of the shutdown, is going to hurt the ability for them to bring that here. it's going to lose the revenue we normally would get interest that. so we need to think about what we're doing. we're not winning any points with anything. a lady waiting with me to get on the plane just laughed when i gave me answer to the t.s.a. agent. i turned to her and almost said,

why are you laughing? i said, i understand why you're laughing because i can't understand it either. so we need to understand what we're doing, why we're doing it -- doesn't make any sense. what we're doing doesn't make any sent what does make sense is to make a resolve to go out and solve the problem. and senator schumer and senator mcconnell and myself and senator crapo and all of us will get in a room and have a meeting with about 100 people who have solved the problem. let's find a way to solve the problem. what can we do to at least not affect the lowest-income people on our payroll because the higher-income people aren't suffering? let's don't call it a republican shutdown new hampshire a democrat shutdown. it is an american shutdown. i see senator schumer has come. i don't usually get this riled up, chuck. i apologize. i am riled up a little bit. but it is just silly. i used to explain anything. i was a pretty good real estate agent. i could close a deal.

when i listened to the answers i was giving these people who are good ol' american citizens for why we can't get the government open, i said, you know, if i was them, i wouldn't vote for them either. let's do what elected officials are supposed to do and let's make a deal. i yield back my time.

madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. isakson: i suggest the absence of a quorum until the two leaders decide they want to talk. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent -- sorry, that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i'm not going to talk about the substance of what we're here for. my dear friend johnny, who i love, serves the best barbecue i've had had ever year, among many other tributes. he says it is not a democratic shutdown for a republican shutdown. it is a trump shutdown. we all know it. the donald trump has called for the shutting down of the

government 25 times. he said in our meeting he is proud to shut down the government. we democrats do not want to shut down the government. our watchword is open up the government. we have a difference on border consumer we're for t you're for t you're for something different than us. but we are not shutting down the government. and everyone knows it. the public opinion polls know it. 40% of all republicans, let alone democrats and independents, while they're for the wall, most of those people, say the government shouldn't be shut down over the wall. so i know how aggravated my colleague is. and i would suggest to him, the best solution is to vote for what he voted -- or the whole republican party did by unanimous consent, open up the negotiate and then we can discuss our border security issues. mr. isakson: will my colleague yield? i call to follow up on one of your points. we need to do what we did

earlier last year. we worked out an immigration agreement. we got the daca situation fixed. the president came out for a large number of daca improvements. we almost got there. we fell short by six votes. and the leader and i -- you and i were on the same side. a lot of us were on the same side. those are the type of answers we need. we've got to push to get that done. then we can open the government. mr. schumer: there is just one difference between then and now. neither sideways with shutting down the -- neither side was shutting down the government until they got their way. i yield the floor. i'll make my statement, i guess, and wait for leader mcconnell for the motion to proceed. so, madam president, before we take a vote on the motion to proceed on this resolution, i want to make two brief points and i know my colleagues have discussed this very well. first, my friends, the republican leader and former republican whip, senator cornyn,

are being disingenuine to suggest this is a political stunt and accuse democrats of forcing this vote out of the blue. the timing of this vote was not determined by me or leader mcconnell. it was determined by the law. the law says that we only have 30 days to disapprove a sanctions relief on russia. this was filed right before christmas. i would suggest the administration and treasury hoped to getaway with it, because they know how unpopular it would be to remove sanctions on deripaska or onto the companies he controls. they knew how unpopular it would be, so they snuck it in right before christmas, right before we left, and we only have 30 days. knows days expire thursday. if we were to wait, those 30 days would expire. they would be gone and we'd have no opportunity. so this was no accident. if leader mcconnell, senator

cornyn want to know why this vote is today, they should talk to the white house because they're the ones who filed this on december 21. second, there are serious substantive reasons to oppose the treasury plan. it fails to sufficiently limit mr. deripaska's stake in these three russian companies, it gives vladimir putin exactly what he wants -- sanctions relief on three major providers of aluminum and other metals. that is wrong for the country. putin's russia continues to run rampant over international norms. meddling in democratic elections, destabilizing the world. russia has violated the sovereignty of ukraine, the interfered in our elections, the brexit vote, propped up the brutal assad regime and implicated in nerve agent tacks on the soil of our closest ally. and yet the trump administration proposes reducing sanctions on putin and his cronies. show me the behavior from

vladimir putin that warrants such relief? i can't think of any. i'll bet 090% of all americans can't think of any. so let me be clear. a vote against this resolution, a vote to not allow us to proceed a vote to go easy on president putin and his oligarchs. i understand my friend, the leader, the republican leader, will move to table the motion to proceed to the resolution. i'd remind my colleagues, the time line runs out on thursday -- 48 hours from now. we have to take this vote now. so i strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on the motion to table, yes on the motion to proceed, and now, mr. president, i move to proceed to calendar number 13, s.j. res. 2. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 13, senate joint resolution 2, disaapproving the president's

proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the russian federation. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: madam president -- schumer would the leader yield for second? i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i believe the senate's voice should indeed be heard on national security policy. this is why i've moved to have the senate's first legislative business this congress be a bipartisan package of foreign policy bills. i made it our first priority to move legislation that would have helped defend israel and jordan and provide justice for syrians

who've been tortured and murdered by the assad regime. but democrats have repeatedly blocked that important legislation. the democratic leader said the senate should do any business during this partial government shutdown. but apparently he didn't actually mean it, because now the democratic leader would like to dictate the terms of a debate on russia. we republicans are hardly strangers to the need for strong policies concerning russia. we've long seen vladimir putin for the k.g.b. thug that he is. we've long advocated for tough measures against him and the kleptocrats who surround him. just ask the junior senator from utah who only six years ago was move to concurred -- move to concurred -- by the other side for advocating tough policies against the kremlin. this republican administration

has taken far tougher messages -- measures against russia than the previous administration did. it's designated 272 russia-related individuals and entities for sanctions, expelled scores of russian intelligence officers, shuttered russian diplomatic outposts, and equipped ecrane and georgia to defend themselves against russian aggression. clearly there's more work to be done, and i look forward to this congress taking additional steps to defend our interests against the russian threats and to additionally impose costs on putin. specifically, i look forward to seeing whether democrats will join us -- join us -- in providing additional funding to rebuild our military in key areas to deter and defend against russian investments in key weapons systems. i look forward to seeing whether

democrats will support efforts to modern hice our aging nuclear triad, as the russians have done. i look forward to the congress reviewing its existing sanctions policies to see how we can impose additional costs on putin and his cronies. who enable his maligned activities. i look forward to the congress ensuring that our sanctions efforts remain multilateral and maximize support from our european allies whose participation is essential to imposing meaningful costs on the kremlin. but in this narrow case, career civil servants at the treasury department simply apply and implemented the law congress itself wrote and which the democratic leader supported. treasury's agreement maintains sanctions on corrupt russian oligarch deripaska. it would continue limiting his

influence over companies subject to the agreement. in addition to subjecting the companies and their officers to unprecedented transparency and monitoring requirements, the agreement preserves treasury's ability to snap back sanctions on the companies and their officers. if there's any evidence of further malfeasance, i expect treasury to use that authority to the fullest. in the meantime, the democratic leader's political stunt should be rejected. so i'll move to table this effort to overturn the hard and painstaking work of the career officials at treasury, but i look forward to continuing our efforts to hold putin and his cronies accountable in a thoughtful, far less politicized manner. madam president, i move to table the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 2 and ask for the yeas and nays. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent i be allowed to speak for 15 seconds. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second is there a sufficient second? mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: there appears to be.

the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 seconds. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, the democratic leader. mr. schumer: the leader's rhetoric belies his word. if you believe putin is a thug, you don't vote to table this resolution. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the question is son the motion to table. -- the question is on the motion to table. the yeas and nays were previously ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: does any senator wish to vote or change their vote? seeing none, the yeas are 42. the nays are 57. the motion to table is not agreed to. the question is on the motion to proceed. the yeas and nays are previously

ordered. the clerk shall call the roll. vote: vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber who wish to vote or change their vote senate seeing none, the yeas are 57. the nays 42. and the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the joint resolution. the clerk: calendar number 13, s.j. res. 2, joint resolution disapproving the president's proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the russian federation.

mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, it's amazing how much we talk about our kids. people talk about bipartisan things here awfully the time. there's a bipartisan conversation often about our families and about our kids, about how proud of them that we are. about sharing our lives with each other. our kids and my two daughters, they're a remarkable part of my family and who i am. and i can't even process life without thinking about the two of them. our kids are some of the most valuable moments of our entire life and our greatest memories. when they were little we looked into their eyes, we saw potential and we dreamed for them. from our earliest days of pregnancy, cindy and i talked about the future for our girls

as we prayed for them, thought about them, prepared for them, and it sunk in what the incredible responsibility that they really are. kids are that way. this is that earliest moment that we talk about all the time. what's remarkable about this photo is thinking about just exactly what this moment could be like because in this moment there's really two directions that it could go in america, because this little one was born several weeks early. for that little one, life could have gone two different directions. this group of doctors is gathered around this little one delivering this child and watching them take their very first breath. but only seconds before that, seconds before that, that same little one we see there and this same group of doctors could have destroyed that life in the womb,

and it would have been okay. you see, in america this moment could go two different directions at any time. this life could be there and we could watch the decades ahead of them, or seconds before this picture was taken when that child was still in the womb, that life could have been destroyed and no one would have been attention, because the determination whether this is a child or whether this is just a little lump of tissue is determined by a few seconds in a delivery room. it's still inside the womb. it's not the child. it's just tissue. a few seconds later when it is delivered, everyone smiles and looks at the face of this baby and say, what a beautiful child and what a remarkable miracle that is. how do we do that in america? how do we try to decide what's life? and what's just tissue?

some people would say, it's only a child if we believe that it's a child f we don't believe that it's a child, it's not a child, it's only tissue. if some people would say, it has incredible value and we should prepare for his or her college and we should think and pray about their future and their spouse and what they're going to do, some people would say, it's meaningless, just flesh that can literally be put into a bag and taken to the curb. the determination is really the mom and the dad there. they get to choose whether that's a child or whether that's tissue. i honestly don't understand that conversation. because when i look at this child, the fingers and toes and hair and unique d.n.a., there's nothing different about that child right there than this child. you see, that child that we saw in the picture before is the same age as this, but this time

this was a 3-d ultrasound taken inside the womb. but there's no difference between the two. both of them have a face, fingers, toes, and a nervous system, a functioning brain, they have lungs, they have d.n.a. that is different than the mom, different than the dad, d.n.a. that is unique to that person -- whether you can see them or not, that heartbeat and that d.n.a. is a child. in america, we still have this ongoing dialogue -- when is life life? i heard someone jokingly say earlier that if this life was discovered on mars, we would say mars has life on it. but we're still discussing whether this life is a life on earth.

what do we do with that? well, here's what we continue to debate and continue to have a conversation on. january 20, 1973, the supreme court ruled on the infamous roe v. wade decision. it was supposed to have settled the issue about life. it was supposed to settle the issue that every single state has to allow abortion and that life, according to the supreme court in 1973, was about viability. when can this child live on their own outside the womb, viability? well, viability in 1973 is very different than viability now, thankfully. when we think about viability now, there are children born at 21, 22 weeks, extremely he recallly, that would have never survived in 1973 that regularly survive now because of great medical care. viability really doesn't determine life, though. life is something that begins

much earlier, and for some reason in our culture, we're still having a conversation about what to do with that tissue. we as americans spend a lot of time trying to be able to work on very difficult issues, but for some reason this has become a partisan issue that's exceptionally device sniff our culture. this life and this child shouldn't be a partisan issue. it shouldn't be a republican child or a democrat child. this should just be a child and we should be able to pause for a moment and be able to determine, what are we going to do about her and is she valuable? we spend billions of dollars has a culture caring for the homeless because we believe that every single life matters and no life can be just thrown away just because they struggle with life. we spend billions of dollars caring for the oldest and the weakest in our society because they need 24-hour care and we respect that life.

and the dignity that they carry. we demand equal protection for women and men, all races, all ages, all sexual orientations. all parent. faiths. we believe that is as a culture that every person should have respect and opportunity because of their great potential. we pat ourselves on the back when we adopt abused animals, when we stand up against human trafficking worldwide, when we help clean up ocean trash or we plant trees to beautify our community. but we're having a tough time considering that child is a child. we even require that cigarettes, alcohol, theme park rides, medicines and many other products have warning labels on them to warn pregnant moms not to use this product because it could harm that child. because as a culture, we acknowledge that a mom smoking

hurts a child, but for some reason we can't seem to acknowledge that that child could be hurt by an abortion, and it really ends a life. it is my guess that anyone who disagrees with this has already tuned me out. because as a icle tour we don't want to -- because as a culture, we don't want to think about this lifetime if for a moment we pause and think maybe she's really alive and has purpose and value, we would have to swallow hard and acknowledge the millions of little girls just like her that have died in abortions in america -- millions. so to fight against centering to deal with that, we just don't want to think about it, and we just tune it out. but if you're one of the folks that's actually stuck with me in dialogue, let me walk through a couple of things just for us to think about. let's start with a few things -- the science.

this little girl has d.n.a. that's different than mom and dad, has cell division, that is something that we would look at called the carnegie stages of development. for years and years, every medical school teaches the carnegie stages of development, looking at cell division at the beginning point and acknowledges as they go through the process this is a child from the earliest moments and that is a stage of life. every single person that can hear me right now has gone through the carnegie stages of embryonic development, just like this little one hazard. every person has, because we understand that is a natural part of life. that is a stage of life. it is an acknowledgment of life. it's something that we acknowledge in the animal world because this congress has passed laws to deal with endangered species, including a $100,000 fine if you damage a golden eagle egg, a balanced eagle egg, if you go to marine turtles, to their nesting spot, and destroy

or even disturb the nest of a marine turtle, or in oklahoma when we deal with with barn swallows that will build their nest in the springtime in a construction area. all construction has to stop if a barn swallow builds a nest in your construction area because the eggs are important, not so much because. barn swallow, but because there is common understanding in this congress that that is a future barn swallow, eagle and turtle. we acknowledge that's a life that's in process and so we protect it. but we can't seem to make the just simple, logical step that that eagle egg becomes an eagle and she is a little girl. the science screams at us in this area, but for many people they just don't want to think about it. because at this stage, she is in the womb. she's invisible. she hasn't reached this stage

when you can see her and so for many people they only say, only alive when i can see her. if i can't see her, you are not real. the problem is, the science doesn't prove that out. the second issue that we've got to deal with is just where we are as a culture and where we are as a country compared to other countries on this simple issue about looking at this little one and saying, is that a child or is that just tissue? where is the rest of the worth this? it is interesting to note the rest of the world is in a different spot than the united states on this. this is just a simple map of the world. most of the world -- you'll see it in the gray here -- most of the world says that abortion should stop at 12 weeks. that's three months. after three months, you can't have an abortion anymore. there are seven countries in the world that will allow abortion all the way up to 24 weeks. they're the countries that are

here in black -- canada, north korea, the united states, and china. they allow abortion at 24 weeks. but at 24 weeks and on, in that third trimedicine,there are only four countries -- china, north contrary, vietnam, and the united states. everywhere else in the world looks at that child and says, that child is a child. fully viable except the united states, china, north korea, and vietnam. that's not a club i really want us to be in. all of europe has banned late-term abortion. all of it. all of africa, most of asia, all of central and south america -- they've looked at this and as a culture they've said, late-term

abortions -- no, that's a fully viable child. interestingly enough, there is a survey that just came out today that was a nationwide survey asking americans' opinion on this issue about life. 75% of americans said there should not be abortion after 12 weeks -- that's three months -- of pregnancy except to protect the life of the mom. 75% of americans. they're with this part of the world. this part of the world all says that same thing, that most of europe and most of that area says, okay, after 12 weeks you got to stop because that child has a functioning nervous system and brained and they're developing in all of those areas. even if you don't acknowledge where i am, where i believe life begins at the conception why can't you at least acknowledge at 12 weeks where most of the rest of the world is, to say that that's a child that should be protected? at what point do we as americans

slow down enough to be able to look at what we don't want to look at what the rest of the world has done, except for vietnam, north korea, and china? why do we want to be in that group when we deal with the issue of life? those are some of the worst human rights violators in the world. why are we in a club? i have some folks that have said, i understand this is a legislative issue. but it is really a faith. your faith shouldn't legislate who i am. well, i would only tell you that cultures all make decisions, including our cultures, not just about their faith but their values as a culture. stealing is also a religious issue. it's in the 10 commandments, so maybe as a culture we shouldn't ban stealing because the 10 commandments says you shouldn't steal. but no one would say that because as a culture we all say theft is a problem. cultures makes decisions based

on their own personal values. so it is not just a religious irk. issue. but our faith does impact our personal lives and decisions. it the does affect who we are. in china, where most faith is banned, they allow abortion at any stage. in fact, in china, the state is the most important thing. everything is about building up the state. the individual has no value. the state has the greatest value. and so? china, they determine -- and so in china, they determine we have too many people so they force women to have abortions. some can have one child, some can have two children, but every child after that has to be aborted because the state values that. their greatest value is the state. our greatest value is the individual. that's why our documents begin with things like we the people. because the individual has value. we look at senior adults in the nursing home and provide care for them. the homeless person, the child who's in need of food, and that

little girl still in the womb. and say they all have value because the individual has importance. i had someone that caught me and said, your faith has this whole verse in it where it says i was knit together in my mother's womb. so this is a religious issue. you have belief tha÷ -- that each child was knit together by god in their mother's womb. they said that's fine for you to have that belief, with you they said i have the belief that they were knit together. when they are not fully knit together, they are not a shirt, they are only a sleeve. if they are still in development, they are not fully developed, they are not really a child yet. i smiled at them and say actually, this child, although this one was born premature, you're right is not fully developed. it's not just a sleeve. it's a smaller shirt. she'll get there. because everything about your

life's development, your hair color, your height, your health is all bound up if those first cells as they start dividing in your own unique d.n.a. this is not about a religious conviction. this is about a child and who we are as a culture. let me say this. i understand there is a lot of conversation. as i mentioned before, this becomes a partisan divisive issue. this is not trying to be republicans and democrats. i met republicans and democrats that both can look at this picture and say that's a child, not tissue. this shouldn't be a divisive political issue. neither should be an attacking condemning issue to moms and dads who have walked through abortion. i have great compassion for them, quite frankly. those moms that have had abortion, that memory never goes away for them. years later, they sit in the food court at the mall and watch a small child play nearby and

think that's how old my child would be right now if they were still alive. i have not met a mom ever that wasn't affected by abortion and the memories that come back to them on that. this is not a flip apartment issue for any person that goes through abortion. i grieve for those folks and the struggle that they have. but i also grieve for us as a nation. the devaluing of something so obvious as a child. we can do better as a country, but the first thing we have to do is stop and look. as a nation, we have been through some moments that we are not proud of, but we are proud as a nation of who we can become. we're not proud as a nation that at one point we declared african american men and women as

three-fifths of a man. we are not proud of that as a nation. we are not proud as a nation that we once told women they could not vote. we are not proud as america that at one point we took japan americans and interned them in examples because we were afraid of them. we're not proud of those moments as americans. and i pray there is a day that we're not proud, that we looked away from little girls and little boys and said you're not human enough yet. your life can be ended because i don't want to look at you. the beginning for us really is to stop and look at what's obvious. that's a child. what are you going to do about that child? one of the great books of the 20th century was written by a man named ralph he will -- ralph elison who was an oklahoman.

he wrote in the early 20th century a booked called "the invisible man." it's a remarkable journey to be able to look into that time period, but the author who is really writing as the narrator in the book, the narrator is telling his story. in the prologue of the book, there is a section that i want to be able to read to you because i thits powerful just in thinking about the philosophy that ralph ellison put out. he said this. i'm a man of substance of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids. i might even be said to possess a mind. but i am invisible. i'm invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me like the bodyless heads you sometimes see at circus side shows. it's as show i have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. when they approach me, they only see my surroundings themselves or figments of their imagination. indeed, everything and anything except me.

nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of biochemical accident to my especially durham is. -- to my epidermis. that invisibility to which i refer occurs because of the particular disposition of the eyes of those with whom i come into contact. a matter of the construction of the inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. ralph ellison was saying white america in the early 20th century ran into black america but refused to look and ignored as if they were invisible and just walked on. as a culture, i'm grateful that americans are opening their eyes to each other as friends and as neighbors and as americans. and i wonder one day when the peculiar eyes that choose to

pretend this child is invisible simply because she looks like this, when our peculiar eyes choose to look at what we have chosen to say is invisible, and to turn away and to say let's do what we do as a culture to make this right. let's march for life. let's speak out for what's obvious, and let's determine what to do with the next step. with that, i yield the floor. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. sullivan: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: madam president, is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. sullivan: i ask permission that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: madam president, i want to spend a few minutes talking about the partial government shutdown, which is happening, and more importantly related to this the men and women of the united states coast guard who are working today like every other member of the military, risking their lives here in my state and alaska, overseas, in the middle east, and are not getting paid to do so. the only branch of the u.s. military not getting paid to risk their lives for their country in the u.s. military. they missed their first paycheck today, but, madam president, here's the good news. we're offering a solution, a solution that's working through

the federal government, that has a lot of potential. and before i get to that, i want to talk a little bit about the partial government shutdown itself, make clear that i believe the trump administration's efforts to secure the border should be part of the solution. every nation has the right, has the responsibility to protect its citizens, protect its sovereignty, and in my view this is something that should not be controversial. every nation has the right and responsibility to do this, and that's what the citizens of each country expect. it should not be controversial. in fact, over the past 25 years, every single president of the united states, democrat, republican, has attempted to secure our southern border, has come before the congress and said i'm going to secure the

southern border, has campaigned on securing the southern border. they have all said this and even the members of congress, democrats and republicans year after year have come to the floor, both houses, and said we need to do it. just in 2014, president obama in a big speech called the situation on the southern border a crisis. it was four years ago. a crisis. the previous president, president obama, i agree with his assessment then and i agree with president trump's assessment now, which is the same assessment. that's why the president is asking for $5.7 billion to secure our border. it's not an unreasonable request, particularly as many members of this body just last spring when we were debating immigration reform voted for dollar amounts that were much greater than that. again, democrats, republicans.

last spring debating on the floor of this body, immigration reform, border security way north of $5.7 billion. so this is just one of the many solutions we need to grapple with in order to have a functional immigration system that secures our border, enforces the law, helps grow our economy, and importantly keeps families together, but securing the border is an important goal. so i'm hoping, as we all work on this, that speaker pelosi, minority leader schumer, the president, my republican colleagues, that we can get to a compromise on this issue soon. we all need to come together. the good news, as i mentioned, madam president, is that we might be on the verge of coming together, those parties that i just mentioned, on one of the issues that relate to securing our border, that relate to this broader challenge on the partial government shutdown involving the united states coast guard.

and i'm hopeful this could be a template for getting out of the broader partial government shutdown. madam president, as you know, the partial government shutdown is negatively impacting federal workers, but none, none more so than the brave men and women of the u.s. coast guard. they are currently the only members of the u.s. military, as i mentioned, who are not getting paid during this partial government shutdown. the army, the navy, the air force, the marines are all out there risking their lives for our nation. we greatly appreciate that. guess what? they're getting paid to do it, as they should be. but the coast guard members are also out there risking their lives, especially in my state, the great state of alaska. they're out in the bering sea, some of the roughest, most

dangerous oceans in the world, keeping our fishermen safe. rescues. they are deployed overseas. they are deployed in the middle east. they have been in florida, texas, helping with natural disasters, hurricanes, all heroic service. madam president, there's been many shutdowns before in the federal government, unfortunately, dating back decades, but this might be the first time ever that you have every branch of the military being paid during the shutdown with the exception of one. so let me read a letter today from the commandant of the coast guard, admiral carl schultz, to the men and women of the coast guard. it starts with this paragraph. to the men and women of the united states coast guard, today you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled midmonth paycheck. to the best of my knowledge,

this is the first time in our nation's history that service members in a u.s. armed force have not been paid during a lapse in government appropriations. that's the first paragraph in the commandant's letter to all the members of the united states coast guard. the first time in u.s. history that we're doing this to a member, to members of the military. madam president, i'd like to insert the rest of this letter for the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: so nobody thinks this is a good idea. nobody thinks this is a good idea. so last week a number of us in this body, democrats and republicans, put forward a bill that says simply we should pay

the coast guard, the men and women of the coast guard even if we're in a partial government shutdown, just like we're paying the men and women of the other branches of the military. they're risking their lives daily. they can't just quit their job. by the way, if they just want to go quit, they're going to be court martialed. it's a little different from other federal service. so that's what we said we were going to do. when the president came to our, to the senate last week, i had the opportunity to raise this issue with the president and his team, and highlighted the fact that this is very, very different. we need to work together. we have a bill. if we get the president's support on it, signature on it, that would be a good way to move it forward. i've been in communication with his administration ever since the lunch, working with us. well, madam president, i'm

hopeful that we're on the verge of a breakthrough because the white house has said that the president recognizes this is a rather unique situation, very unique, so he has now said he's going to support this bill. so we have democrats, republicans, the white house, the president of the united states all saying, all right, we're not there yet, but this is a good start, and this is an important issue. so what's going on right now in this body, madam president, is we're trying to u.c. this, get unanimous consent from democrats and republicans on this bill. again, leadership on the democratic side, on the republican side have all supported this bill, pay the coast guard like the other military service members. the white house is now supportive. so hopefully tonight we're going to get this cleared, we're

going to get it over to the house. speaker pelosi and her team will recognize how dire and important this is, just like democrats and republicans and the president and secretary nielsen, the secretary at homeland security all recognize this, and we get to a solution. it's not going to end everything, but it will be a solution. so i'm asking my colleagues tonight as this bill is being moved through the hotline for unanimous consent, i think all the republicans have already said they would support it. we get my colleagues on the democratic side. again, there's a number of democratic cosponsors on this bill. the president said he would sign it, get it over to the house, and we start to get solutions as opposed to just roadblocks. madam president, just two broader issues i want to raise here. as i'm indicating, this kind of

work can be a template to getting to a broader solution with regard to the partial government shutdown. democrats, republicans in this body working together. the white house working with us. the trump administration working with us, and hopefully the house will see the wisdom of this when the bill comes over to them, and we get a bill signed that takes care of almost 50,000 active-duty patriots, men and women risking their lives right now as we speak, with no pay. so i'm hopeful that's a template. another broader issue, though, madam president, that this matter actually raises, that we need to focus on a lot more here in the senate, is a problem that i've seen in the last four years during my time here is that sometimes the coast guard

gets short shrift relative to other members of the military. it's wrong, and we need to work on it together. why has that happened? certainly because they're not as heroic and dedicated and patriotic as the rest of the military. and i don't think it's intentional. it's more bureaucratic. the coast guard falls under the commerce committee. the coast guard falls under the homeland security secretary. the marines, the army, the navy, the air force are under the armed services committee, under the pentagon. and sometimes things just happen whether it's retirement pay, whether it's this example of paying the military, where the coast guard gets treated in an unequal manner. it shouldn't. they shouldn't. we need to treat all members of the military, all five branches the same.

pay, retirement, shutdowns. and again, i think it's not intentional, but it does happen. so, madam president, i'm the chairman of the subcommittee and the commerce committee in charge of the coast guard, sit on the armed services committee. and i want to work with, i know a lot of my colleagues democrats and republicans have recognized this is a problem. the chairman of the commerce committee, the chairman of the armed services committee have. i think we're all focused. again, bipartisan, to address some of these challenges where the coast guard is not treated equally among the other services. and that's just wrong. so we need to start working on that. i'm going to continue to focus on that issue. but the best way we can start working on that is tonight. fix this pay problem which every single american knows is

inequitable, knows is not fair to the men and women of the coast guard, but we're on the verge of a solution. let's u.c. this, we have white house's support, get it over to the house. and at least we'll take care of one issue where there's inequality between the men and women in the other branches of the service and the coast guard, and then we'll work to fix all the others. but i'm hopeful that we're going to get there tonight, and hopefully we'll solve this problem in the next 24 to 48 hours. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: it's been an interesting start to this new congress. two weeks ago today, i believe. almost two weeks ago this week.

we're in a shutdown, and then we had a vote here a few minutes ago to disapprove of a decision made by the administration. a lot of people would look at that and they would say that's a sign of weakness and division, and most certainly i don't like this shutdown. i hope that we can figure our way out of it quickly. a lot of people who have nothing to do with it are being hurt. my feelings about that or strong as well i don't think what the president is requesting is unreasonable. but the reason we have a shutdown is because at the end of the day everyone involved, no matter how long and how strongly they disagree, are willing to live by the constitution. and the constitution says that the only way you can fund the government is if the house and senate pass a spending bill and the president signs it into law. likewise, we had a vote a few minutes ago about a decision made by the administration to delist a russian company after some changes were made to the ownership structure.

you may disagree with it or agree with it but the bottom line is that the reason that vote happened is because we passed a law that said within 30 days of it being enacted the congress could act to disapprove. that's the way our constitutional system works. and so despite our sharp agreements, despite our arguments, despite what appears outwardly to the country and many in the world as a sign of division and weakness, the results may not be anything that we support or maybe it is, but at its core let's remind ourselves that the reason this is happening is because everyone involved, no matter how much they appear to dislike each other or how much they disagree, they are willing to live within the letter and the law of the constitution of the united states of america. but imagine an alternative for a moment. imagine if the president, frustrated by congress' continuing unwillingness to fund one of his priorities on border security, frustrated by a decision in congress to disapprove of a decision that he

made regarding sanctions, decided not only was he going to ignore congress, but he was going to stop paying them, he was going to jail its members, and he was going to create an alternative congress, which he handpicked and controlled. that sounds far-fetched. that sounds clearly unconstitutional. but there are parts of this world where those kinds of things are happening, and one of them is in our hemisphere. what i've just described to you is exactly what has happened in the nation of venezuela beginning as early as 2013. what has happened there is that the supposed president, actual dictator of the country, frustrated that the democratically elected national assembly would not support his initiatives to control the country, decided to create an alternative, what they call a constituent assembly, an alternative congress. they no longer pay the national assembly members at all. they have no staffing. noaf budget. they are -- they have no

budget. they're hardly allowed to meet and several of them have been jailed. as part of this process of replacing the national assembly or at least ignoring them and giving no force of law to what they vote on and creating this alternative national assembly called the constituent assembly outside their constitution with no basis in law, that entity, that organism called for an election, a new election for president, and it was a snap election designed to not allow the opposition to organize in time, an election in which they control all the television stations, in which people had to show an i.d. card in order to vote and that i.d. card happened to be the card that got your family food and medicine, the limited amounts people were getting. not a fair election in any way. and the result is that last may maduro wins, ,quote-unquote, this fraudulent, ,quote-unquote, election. and the first day of his term of this fraudulent presidency was last week.

and rightfully the president of the united states, along with leaders from multiple other countries, including colombia and brazil and canada, dozens of countries around the world have said maduro is an illegitimate president under the constitution of venezuela, the election isn't free and fair, the election was held by an organism that is not recognized under the constitution. you're not the real president. you're a fraud. and the only reason why you're in office is because you are threatening to jail or kill the people who are willing to raise this point against you. the administration went further and they said that the national assembly of venezuela is the only constitutionally democratically elected government in the country. so the statements we've made in the last week are entirely rooted in the rule of law and entirely rooted in the venezuelan constitution, and they're not unilateral actions. these statements have been supported by other countries in the region, including

venezuela's neighbors. and so it in fact, we are basing our public policy on the constitution of venezuela. there is one more provision that we cannot ignore, and that is a provision in the constitution that says that when there is a vacancy in the presidency and the vice presidency, the president of venezuela is the president of the national assembly. we have a similar line of succession in the united states. in the absence of a president or vice president, the speaker of the house automatically becomes the president of the united states. they might have a swearing-in ceremony, but by law that absence triggers the presidency of the speaker of the house, third in line, followed by number fourth in line, the president pro tempore of the senate. they have a similar outline in venezuela under their constitution. and so it stands to reason that if our policy is that maduro is

illegitimate and so is his vice president because they were elected in an extra constitutional fraudulent election, then clearly the presidency of venezuela is vacant. and if we are rooting our support for the national assembly as the only constitutionally and legitimate elected body in the country, then we must respect the fact that that constitution automatically passes the title of presidency to the president of the national assembly. and what i have come to the floor to ask is that the administration, hopefully in concert with brazil, canada, and colombia, simply recognize what the venezuelan constitution lays out, there is no president in venezuela that has been democratically elected and via their own constitution, the current president of venezuela,

pending a new election is the president of the national assembly. this is entirely rooted, as i said in the root of law and under the venezuelan constitution. it the doesn't even require him to assume the office. it is automatically bestowed upon him. it is a critical thing for us to do in order to begin to build a better future for venezuela, along with our partners in the region. i think the next actions that should be followed after that happens is that he name is cabinet and name leaders to run the military. from the u.s.' perspective since we recognized the legitimate presidency of the national assembly's new president, pending an election, i think the time has come to expel the maduro ambassadors and have replacements. the frozen assets of the

venezuelan government should be put at the disposal of the legitimate government so they can conduct a free and fair election and also use it to rebuild the country. the opportunity exists to work with the new president pending the new election to begin laying out plans to deliver humanitarian aid right now along with our partners in the region and the world and also to help put together a package of assist unanimous to help rebuild a country decimated by the current dictatorship. these are bold moves, but they are entirely rooted in the rule of law, entirely justified under the venezuelan constitution and will be clear evidence that we will not stand by idly as democracy in the region is wiped out by this growing trend ashed around the -- trend around the world of growing tyranny, holding ee liks -- elections that aren't real elections. in essence, dressing the part of

democrats but behaving like dictators. and so i urge -- strongly urge this administration publicly, and i've done so privately, to move quickly to recognize the president of the national assembly of venezuela as the interim president of that country pending a transition to a new free and fair election and i hope that this action we will take in concert with our partners in the region who recognize the exact same thing, there is a winnow of opportunity here to shine the light of freedom and liberty through our actions, and i hope we move expeditiously in pursuit of that goal. and to the venezuelan people, that they may know that we are standing with them. that we have been given a concrete opportunity to defend their aspirations for freedom and a better future, but also to defend their constitution, to military officers in venezuela

who swore to uphold and defend their constitution that now is the opportunity for you to abandon the current direction of the country and assume your responsibility that you've sworn to uphold, and that is the constitutional provisions of that country. i believe with all of my heart and i have every reason to believe without any doubt that this administration, along with this congress, stands ready to work hand in hand with the people of venezuela to restore a rightful democracy and to empower that country to head in the right direction. i urge the administration to move quickly to take the first step on our part to facilitate that. it is, as i said, the last best chancer we have before it potentially becomes too latin the did cloud of tyranny settles upon venezuela the way it has over cuba and increasingly over

nicaragua now for over two generations. so i urge the president and his administration to do only what they are empowered to do under our constitution, and that is recognize the rightful heads of state of other nations. i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, i know you're not allowed to respond to me, but allow me to william you to the -- welcome you to the chair as a new member of the senate. with a new year comes a lot of changes, and this month a democratic majority was sworn into the house of representatives. that new majority has heard the call from americans to make tackling climate change one of our top priorities, and what a

change that will make from the last congress. young voters who helped propel this change are urgently concerned about climate change. more than three-fourths of millennials agree on the need for climate action. even a majority of republican my lenals -- millennials agree that we need climate action. one congressman wrote, and i quote, my party will never earn the votes of millennials unless it gets serious about finding solutions. and, of course, it's not just younger voters. polling shows that americans of all ages and political stripes favor policy solutions scientists and economists say are needed to tackle climate

change. a recent survey of more than 10,000 registered voters showed that nearly two-thirds of americans believe that investing in renewable energy will create more jobs than investing in fossil fuel. among republicans here, 5 2% of republican voters think that focusing on renewables will create more jobs than fossil fuel. 52% to 29%, and that's with the nonstop saturation, indoctrination of the republican party by the fossil fuel industry with all of its propaganda and nonsense. and, of course, the facts bear out that renewable energy will create more jobs. it's already happening. over three million americans are employed in the renewable energy an energy efficiency areas

compared to one million in fossil fuels. and there is far, far more job growth in the renewable sector than in the declining fossil fuel industry. solid majorities of americans say they want more emphasis on renewable energy. 71% want more solar. 64% want more wind. 56% want more hydropower. by contrast, only 40% want more natural gas, only 25% want more oil, and only 18% want more coal. 71% wanting solar, 18% wanting

coal. i think the trump administration would do well to pay attention to those numbers if it were indeed about the numbers, anyway. so make the question harder. go all in. ask americans about a full transition to a 100% renewable energy system, and most say that the transition to a 100% renewable energy system for america will be good for working families. it will be good for working families. better than continuing on our fossil fuel path. and if you look at what republicans say, by two to one republican voters say that going to renewables will have a positive impact on working

families versus only 23.5% who say it will have a negative impact. the rest don't know or no impact -- impact either way, but the people who favor 100% renewables as a good thing for working families, even among republican voters, two to one over fossil fuel. when americans are told about a green new deal to reduce carbon pollution and create clean energy jobs by investing in infrastructure, and renewable energy and efficient buildings and transportation systems, almost 70% are supportive, and that includes almost 60% of republicans. 20% strongly support, 36.8%

support. so even the green new deal is a winner among republican voters. ask about putting a price on carbon pollution. why would you want to do that? because right now the costs of carbon pollution are put on the public. they are put on all of us. they are put on our constituents. polluters get away with pollute pg for free -- polluters get away with polluting for free and the rest of us pay for the added drought, wildfire, and storm damage costs. more than 60% of registered voters support pricing carbons to reduce emissions. and if you look at republicans, a majority of republicans under the age of 45 also support a carbon price. this new polling matches other

polling that is on its way out or recently out that shows solid support for pricing carbon and making polluters pay for the damage that they are causing, which, by the way, is also economics 101, but never mind that, we're talking about polling today. a mammoth university poll shows that 64% of republicans now accept climate change as a problem and a majority of republicans support government action to combat climate change -- a majority of republicans. an abc news poll showed 81% of americans support cutting greenhouse gas emissions. two-thirds supported a carbon tax, and 81% supported tax breaks for renewable power. these are big, strong national

majorities in favor of the kind of action we need and could do to stem the climate crisis. a poll for yale and george mason universities showed that 70% of registered voters, including over half of republicans, support reducing greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. this poll also found majority support across both parties for u.s. participation in the paris agreement and overwhelming support for renewable energy among republicans and democrats and independents. this poll found that three-quarters of registered voters, including a majority of republicans, support setting strict limits on carbon pollution from coal-fired power

plants. and a majority of republicans, independents, and democrats support imposing a revenue neutral carbon tax on fossil fuel companies. a majority of republicans support imposing a revenue neutral carbon tax on fossil fuel companies. well, i've had a bill with senator schatz in the last several congresses to do just that, charge a fee on the polluters for their carbon emissions and then return all the revenue raised back to the american people. several bills on the house side also price carbon pollution, and a few even had republican cosponsors, but these bills went nowhere under republican leadership, notwithstanding these numbers, not with strange

this public -- notwithstanding this public support. why? because the fossil fuel industry opposes them. so no hearing, no vote, no nothing. what did get a vote in the house last year under republican leadership? a resolution condemning carbon pricing, condemning the carbon pricing that a majority of republican voters support. condemning it. backed, of course, by the fossil fuel industry. virtually every expert, economist, and scientist who has studied the question says that putting a price on carbon pollution is not only the right thing to do morally and economically but it's necessary to keep global temperatures from climbing 2 degrees celsius above preindustrial norms as the scientific consensus makes clear

we must do at a minimum, at a minimum. if we blow past 2 degrees, all bets are off and the consequences of climate change may become irreversible. even at 1.5 degrees increase, we are taking chances. but dozens of industry-backed front groups -- it's hard to see but this is the usual array of web of denial phony baloney front groups that have been supported, funded, and created by the fossil fuel industry so people don't think it's the fossil fuel industry emitting this nonsense. they have groups with names like alec and the competitive enterprise institute and americans for tax reform and the heartland institute and institute for liberty. these groups clean up their propaganda for them. so here come these letters.

these industry-backed front groups had one important thing going for them that the nobel prize winning economist on the other side couldn't match, and that is big political money and the fossil fuel industry behind them. groups behind this letter to speaker ryan received at least $54 million from big oil and the koch brothers political network. at least $54 million. we don't know for sure because of their clandestined dark money funds network. likely it is far, far more. let me interrupt the remarks that i'm making. i see that the majority leader has come to the floor. may i ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the majority leader's remarks i be allowed to deliver the remainder of my remarks and that the remairchedzer be connect --

remainder be connected forward so it looks as if my speech were uninterrupted on the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: with that i yield to the majority leader to do his closing business. mr. mcconnell: i thank my friend from rhode island. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. i withdraw that consent request. i send a cloture motion to the desk for s.j. res. 2. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the measure. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 2, a joint resolution disapproving the president's proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the russian federation signed

by 20 senators as follows -- mr. mcconnell: i ask the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: now, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. wednesday, january 16. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. further, following leader remarks the senate resume consideration of s.j. res. 2 with the time until 12:30 p.m. equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. finally, notwithstanding the provisions of rule 22, the cloture vote with respect to s.j. res. 2 occur at 12:30

tomorrow and if cloture is not invoked, s.j. res. 2 be returned to the calendar. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of our democratic colleagues. the presiding officer: without objection. cht madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island mr. whitehouse: the minimum $54 million that the fossil fuel industry funded these groups with again likely far more because so much of the fossil fuel industry's funding is obscured through dark money channels to hard their hands, what do they achieve? well, they got a vote. unlike the carbon pricing bills, they got a vote on the house floor. speaker ryan brought the fossil fuel funded resolution to a vote

and with the republican caucus largely a wholly-owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, the resolution passed. there is a whole case study in corruption here as the founding fathers would define it, but the simple lesson for today's purposes, money talks and big fossil fuel money commands. this situation stinks. the polls i just went through and others show what americans want. americans want jobs. americans want clean air. americans want a healthy climate. and americans want to be safe from extreme weather wildfires and rising seas. and americans know that clean energy solutions will get them there. americans are ready for

bipartisan action. and before the supreme court's decision in citizens united came along, we had bipartisan action here in the senate on climate. we had lots of bipartisan action here in the senate on climate. but with citizens united unlimited money launched into our politics, things changed and now the strings are pulled by big oil, big coal, and a couple of creepy fossil fuel industry billion theirs. -- billionaires. special interest money has infected almost everything we do in congress, and it is the flagrant fact of our nonresponse to the climate crisis. the warnings have been coming for decades. first from the scientists. then from the economists.

now from practically everywhere. i went to the capital city of the presiding officer's state and was told there that the staffing requirements for police and fire were going to have to change because phoenix, arizona, was becoming so hot that to get people to work outside responding to emergencies, responding to fires and so forth, you had to build in a whole new staffing regime because it was so hard to work in the new levels of heat that the city of phoenix is experiencing. you had to be able to rotate people much faster through crime scenes and through fire scenes, and you had to have other people willing to stand by and cool them off after they were exposed to super heating. so it's everywhere now. if you live on the coast, it's sea level. if you live out west, it's wildfires. and it includes republican voters and particularly younger

republican voters. remember what the recently departed republican member of congress said. my party will never earn the votes of millennials unless it gets serious about finding solutions. well, clean energy is a solution. and the fact of all this republican voter support on the one hand is a sign of hope for the new year, of hope that elected republicans will hear their voters and will take action and support the clean energy solutions that can avert the climate crisis. but at the same time, the voters on the republican side who are saying what they want, they're also being ignored and, therefore, these numbers are equally telling evidence of the secretive political forces at

work here in congress to bottle us up and to prevent what even republican voters want. there is a rot, madam president, in our politics and our failure on climate change is a telling indicator of that rot. the whole world is watching. america is supposed to be a city on a hill, an example for the world. they don't stop looking when we're a bad example. we've got to get serious about this. time is running out. it is time to wake up and it's time to clean up. with that i yield the floor. a senator: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, madam president. i will first start tonight with asking unanimous consent request. i ask unanimous consent that ramone ross of my staff be granted floor privileges for today's proceedings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you, madam president. madam president, i rise tonight to talk about the medicate program and in particular a new story that came to our attention this past weekend. this is the headline. this is from a story dated the 11th of january late in the day. and it's by "the hill" newspaper. you won't be able to see it from a distance. the headline reads trump officials consider allowing medicaid block grants for states. trump officials considering -- or consider allowing medicaid

block grants for states. here's what just the first two short paragraphs outline. the story begins as follows, the trump administration is considering moving forward with a major conservative change to medicaid by allowing states to get block grants for the program, sources say. capping the amount of money that the federal government spends on the health insurance program for the poor through a block grant has long been a conservative goal. it was a controversial part of the obamacare repeal debate in 2017 with much of the public rallying against cuts to medicaid. after the failure of that repeal effort, the trump administration is now considering issuing guidance to states encouraging them to apply for caps on federal medicaid spending in

exchange for additional flexibility on how they run the program according to people familiar with the discussions. end quote. i won't read the rest of the story and i won't enter the whole story into the record because folks can look it up. and there are other stories as well that covered this same news. so in a sense it's a big new development but it's an old story. it's an old story of members of congress and the administration coming together to try to make changes to the medicaid program. in this case it differs only slightly in that so far at least this seems to be an initiative that's an administration-led initiative. we're not aware of, as far as i

know, any congressional involvement. but it's not all that much different. it's the same thing. we had a long debate in 2017 about whether we should not only repeal the affordable care act but thereby do two things to medicaid. one is to end over time medicaid expansion and second would be to have cuts to medicaid that would result from this same idea, so-called block granting of medicaid. i believe that we litigated, if we can use that word in a legislative sense, litigated that in 2017. the repeal bill did not pass the senate in the summer of 2017. there are other attempts that didn't come to a vote on full repeal. then we had an election in 2018. health care was a major part of that debate. most of it centering on

protections for preexisting conditions and other consumer protections in the law. but if you look at the last two years where you had one party -- one-party rule in washington, republican president, republican house, republican senate, there were major efforts by the administration, by both houses of congress, majorities in both houses in congress to make substantial changes to medicaid and it did not happen. so failing all those attempts, now the administration, i would assume, trying to do it secretively, but now exposed, wants to make changes to medicaid by way of granting waivers and inviting states to -- to in essence change medicaid at the state level. now, this -- this initiative will not affect pennsylvania, or

it's highly unlikely to affect pennsylvania in the near term. so this is about major parts of the country but not every state. but it's a bad idea in short order because what this block granting means is benefits get cut, because it's very simple. when you cut a program that's focused on health care for low-income children, health care coverage for those with disabilities, children and adults, and helping seniors have the benefit of skilled care in a nursing home -- that's another benefit of medicaid -- you're talking about benefits being cut over time. maybe more cuts in one state versus the other, depending upon the nature of the waiver and the particulars of the program in that state, but it's cutting -- it's going to be cutting medicaid.

it's a bad idea, and i think the american people understand that, especially after the debate in 2017. maybe there are some folks who didn't really appreciate medicaid. probably a lot of them in washington didn't appreciate medicaid before the 2017 debate and 2018. maybe there are folks who weren't paying attention for a lot of years, didn't realize the scope of medicaid, didn't realize it covers 70 million americans. and i know that's why some republican elected officials in the congress are hostile to it, very hostile to it because they think it covers too many people. but i think after 2017, those who were misinformed or have forgotten or just were never aware of the benefits of medicaid got a real good reminder because of the debate we had. so that was one positive outgrowth of that, that long and difficult debate on health care

generally, affordable care act specifically, but also by extension medicaid. a proposal like this to block grant medicaid, which was proposed numerous times here in the congress over the last couple of years hurts those basically three groups of americans. hurts kids, people with disabilities, and hurts our seniors. i think that part of it, maybe people tend to forget that this program helps middle-class families as well, because if you have a disability, your income might be higher than low-income, but you get the benefit of medicaid. a lot of middle-class families have a loved one in a nursing home -- would not be able to afford that kind of long-term care without the benefit of medicaid. a lot of those families are middle class. when it comes to children, of

course, that's for children from low-income families, but those children are getting what many believe to be the gold standard for children's health care. i like to say that in pennsylvania, medicaid is a 40-50-60 program. 40-50-60, real simple. 40% of the kids in our state thankfully have the benefit of medicaid. 50% of people with disabilities, roughly, about half of the people in our state with disabilities get the benefit of medicaid. thank goodness they do. and thirdly, the 60, 60% of people getting long-term care in pennsylvania could not get it without the benefit of medicaid. now, in some states, the percentages might be higher or lower than that, but when you

have a program that covers 40% of your children, 50% of your population that has a disability and 60% of your seniors could get long-term care, which they need, they have to -- those folks who have long-term care need it and have to have it. when you have that kind of a program that covers roughly two million people in pennsylvania, 70 million nationwide, you're going to get the attention of a lot of people when you're messing with it. that's a technical term, messing with it. by saying to some degree under the cover of darkness, not having a debate on the floor of the house or senate, but by sending guidance, quote, guidance to states, inviting them to apply for a waiver, it takes a while to approve the waiver, and all of a sudden it comes out that the waiver is granted. and guess what? your state -- if you live in a state where that happens, and you're on medicaid, you might not have medicaid a year from

the waiver being granted or two years or five years. at some point, you may be adversely affected by that. so this is very serious business when it comes to those very vulnerable americans. and in so many ways, medicaid, like a lot of things we debate here -- not only medicaid, but i think medicaid is one of many examples we could cite, but medicaid tells us who we are as a nation. right? people around the world don't simply respect america because america has a strong military, the strongest, best military, the best fighting men and women in the world. no one's even close. but there are a lot of nations that have spent a lot of their military and have strong fighting men and women, have strong -- have a strong military, and they are not respected like we are.

but thank god we have a strong military, the strongest economy in the world. we're blessed by that. but one of the other ways that the world respects us is because they often conclude that we treat our own people better than some other places. and medicaid, which is a 50-year-old program, is a program that tells us who we are as a nation, whom we value, and whom we're willing to fight on behalf of. it tells us a lot about who we are. so america is great because we -- we care deeply about those 70 million people that get the benefit of that program, just like we care deeply about other americans who benefit or would have a connection to our government. and before any administration or any part of our government takes

an action that will lead to the cutting back of -- of a program like medicaid, whether it's by way of legislation or by way of waivers or regulation, they need to hear from us. and i for one am willing to fight on this a long time. a long time. and if i do nothing else but fight this battle, sign me up because we're going to fight hard. i'm not certain we'll win, but i think we will win this battle. so medicaid tells us who we are. and why do i say that? well, because we hear from families all the time. i got a letter at the beginning of the debate in 2017 from a mom like -- like a lot of members of the united states senate, you get a letter from a mom or a dad or a family member. sitting down to put pen to paper in a sense, to write a letter or

send you an e-mail or to express what their lives will be like without a program, what their lives will be like if a change goes forward. in this case, it was pam, a mom, talking about her son rowan. he's, rowan is on the autism spectrum, and her mom talks about the process of not just learning that and what that meant to her and to her family and the challenge of it, obviously, but also the benefits that she received because of medicaid, what we call in pennsylvania medical assistance or by the shorthand m.a. i won't read the whole letter, but pam talks about just one example of what medicaid means, the wraparound services. all of the services that a child gets that has a disability, either maybe on the autism spectrum or a physical disability or maybe a child that has down syndrome. in this case, rowan is on the

autism spectrum. she talks about the behavioral specialist consultant and the therapeutic staff support work as it helps her and the benefits of that and what that means to pam as a mom and her family but also what it means to her son rowan. she talks about rowan benefiting, quote, immensely, benefiting immensely from a program called the child guidance resource center which recently started a new program at this time called the create program. it's a social skills program specifically for autistic children ages 3 to 21. she enrolled rowan in that program, that so-called create program. she goes on to say, quote, i am thrilled by rowan's daily progress. i competent say enough great things about this program, unquote.

that program would not be part of the life of that family absent medicaid, or that program would not be part of the life of that family in the instance where that family was living in a state that had been granted a waiver that allowed block grants that thereby allowed cuts that resulted in that family not getting that kind of service. thankfully, she is in a state where the medicaid program is strong and will be defended aggressively. but i don't want a rowan in another state or a pam, a mom in another state not having the benefit that rowan in pennsylvania has and that pam in pennsylvania has. pam goes on to say without medical assistance, our family would be bankrupt or my son would go without the therapies he sincerely needs, unquote. and at the end of the letter,

she concludes by asking me as her representative to think about her family when we're debating these issues. and i'm quoting. please -- she talks about her -- she and her husband and her son rowan first, and then she says -- she concludes the letter this way. quote, please think of my 9 month old daughter luna who smiles and laughs at her brother daily. she will have to care for rowan late in her life after we are gone. overall, we are desperately in need of rowan's medical assistance and will be devastated if we lost these benefits, unquote. that's what one mom said about the importance of medicaid to that family. now, my point in raising this issue, even though thankfully that we -- now that we have beaten back an effort to legislatively change the medicaid program for the worse, now we have an administrative effort to undermine the program,

but i raise this simply to say that that family in america should not have to worry for ten minutes whether or not their government is going to continue those important benefits to their son or to their daughter, whatever the case may be. maybe their mom in a nursing home or maybe to a neighbor who has got a son or a daughter because of the income level that's getting medicaid. they shouldn't have to worry for 15 -- 10 or 15 minutes about that, because, you know, we're america. we made a decision 50 years ago, and it was a good decision to take care of those families and to do everything we could. some days we won't get it right. some days we'll make mistakes, but on most days, a program like this is helping lots of families, tens of millions of them, and the bureaucrats or the

elected officials or the administration officials in washington who seek to make changes that will adversely affect each -- even one of those families has to look those families in the eye -- or should look them in the eye and tell them why that is good, not just for that family, why is that good for america. how is that going to help us? oh, i know what the argument will be. i've heard it over and over again. they say it's unsustainable. the program, right? they say oh, we're not going to be able to afford this much medicaid ten years from now, 15 years from now, 25 years from now. when they say unsustainable around here, i want to translate for you. that means they are not willing to make people of means pay for it. let me say it bluntly. if we have to charge someone else who has a high income to preserve -- to preserve medicaid, sign me up for that, too. let's be very clear about this.

this program is that important. and i believe there are a lot of americans of means, of high incomes that would want to make sure this program was preserved. i know there are some politicians around here who are always talking about how we've got to make sure they have low tax rates but i think a lot of americans want to preserve the medicare program, want to strengthen it, make changes that are appropriate, make it more efficient where we can. but there are a lot of americans out there of great means who want this program preserved. so we have a lot of work to do to make sure we move in the right direction. let me make one or two more final points, and i'll conclude. one of the other questions is what happens if a block grant proposal goes through nationwide, but even more limited instances?

way back in november of 2016, one of the many organizations that tracks this kind of a program over time, the medicaid program or health care programs issued a report, and they've issued many of these reports but here's just one for your consideration. the name of the organization is center on budget and policy priorities here in washington, been around a long time. it was very helpful in the debate on the health care about the impact of various proposals. here's what the center on budget and policy priorities said in november of 2016. the date is november 30, 2016. i won't read the whole report and i won't enter it into the record to save some space. people can look it up, right. here's the headline: medicaid block grant would slash federal funding, shift cost to states and leave millions more uninsured. here's what some of the headlines say in the report. the first one says a block grant

would cap federal medicaid funding in order to achieve savings for the federal government. that's what the proposal is intended to do. number two, the likely magnitude of federal funding cuts and resulting cost-shift to states would be very large. number three, such a block grant would push states to cut their medicaid programs deeply. the last two are as follows: medicaid is already efficient and innovative. that's true. we don't talk about that enough. it's true. and the last headline is a medicaid block grant would thus lead to draconian cuts to eligibility, benefits, and provider payment rates. what they didn't mention there is it would also hurt a lot of hospitals, especially rural hospitals, cuts to medicaid. here's the number. the house republican budget plan for fiscal year 2017 -- we're going back now to the latter

part of 2016 -- here's what the report concludes, quote, would have cut -- this is in the instance of being implemented as law. quote, would have cut federal medicaid funding by $1 trillion or nearly 25% over ten years relative to current law. on top of the cuts, the plan would secure by repealing the a.c.a.'s medicaid expansion. unquote. i realize that number is bigger than what we're talking about here because we're talking about a number of states changing their medicaid program because of a block granting waiver that was granted to that particular state. but i'm not too concerned about the overall number because that's impossible to predict. but even if just one state was granted this kind of a waiver and implemented block grants, a lot of people in that state would lose their medicaid.

and i think we should be concerned if it was one person losing medicaid because of that, let alone thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or in fact millions. if block granting was granted for the whole country, you're talking double-figure millions would lose that kind of coverage. but even if it's a much smaller number, we should be very concerned about this. here's another reason, not to mess around with medicaid in a way that adversely impacts people or undermines the program. i hear a lot of politicians in washington, both houses, both parties, and i think in almost every instance -- there's probably an exception to this, but in almost every instance are speaking from their heart and do truly care about what's happening in their communities and their states because of the opioid crisis. it's everywhere. it's urban, it's rural, it's

suburban. it's everywhere and it's devastating. we've never seen a public health problem like it probably in 100 years, or at least not anything worse. it's a problem in pennsylvania. it's a problem in every state. i'm sure the presiding officer would agree. but here's the part they don't talk about. sometimes that same person who says i really am worried about the opioid crisis and i want to do the following to help people who are in the grip of that addiction, and i want to institute a program or provide funding or otherwise. that's wonderful when they have that initiative. but sometimes that same member of congress in the next breath will say, but i want to block grant medicaid, or i want to cut or cap medicaid. or we need to cut back on what we spend on medicaid. and they vote for budget after budget after budget and bill after bill to cut medicaid. what do you think is the number-one payer when it comes

to the opioid crisis? the primary payer for opioid treatment and recovery, you guessed it. medicaid. so if you're going to go down this road and talk about this program as if it's some far-off program for them, for someone else, you should look in the mirror because medicaid is an us program. not a them program. not a program for someone far away. it's our neighbors. it's our friends, whether they have an opioid addiction and can only get treatment and services mostly because of medicaid expansion actually as part of the affordable care act. but medicaid itself, the core program of course is a program that makes sure that a child has health care even if they're low-income and their mom and their dad or the person taking care of them is not working,

doesn't have employer coverage. they get the benefit of medicaid. and guess what? when that low-income child gets medicaid, we all benefit. that child's more likely to grow up healthier and he or she will be more productive and a stronger part of our economy. so medicaid for low-income children, or children from low-income families helps all of us. it doesn't just help that child. it's not just a nice thing to do. it's the right thing to do but it's also very practical. medicaid helps people with disabilities, whether they have a profound disability or otherwise. and they have to be eligible for it based upon their disability. but we've made a decision that that's a good thing to do for that individual and for society. and the same is true of a -- people make a decision about a loved one going into a long-term care and they spend down their assets and there's usually a big gap after they spend down.

middle-class families, sometimes people above middle class spend down and they can't afford the cost of nursing home care, and the state says and the federal government says we want to help you. that's why medicaid is so critical to nursing homes. and if you look at the dollars spent, it would not be entirely inaccurate to say that medicaid is a nursing home program with help for children and people with disabilities as well. so i'm just putting the administration on notice that if they want to continue to pursue this, we're going to have a big fight about it, and it's a fight that will go on a long time. it will go on in the courts. it will go on -- it will be, we will litigate it on this floor. we'll litigate it in committees and fight about it in the house and the senate. we'll fight in the streets of

our states, and we'll fight about it a long time until we win because we have other things to do to lift people up around here, to do more on health care, to lower the cost of health care, lower the cost of prescription drugs, make sure that these programs work well. we don't have time for throwing millions of people off of health care or tens of millions off of health care. but there is a broad bipartisan consensus on a whole range of things we can do on health care. that's what we should work on. and the administration, if they're doing the right thing, would abandon these reckless, extreme ideas on medicaid and join us, join both parties in both houses in trying to do something positive and constructive and american on health care.

i don't think it's american to say to a child, you had medicaid before, but we couldn't afford it. you're not going to have health care any longer. or to say that to someone with a disability or senior. so if they want to fight, we're going to be ready to fight, and we will punch hard in that fight. figuratively speaking, of course, fighting every minute of every day against this. madam president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until

mr. mcconnell: madam president, over the course of this partial government shutdown, we've seen our democratic colleagues engage in increasingly acrobatic contortions in order to dodge a serious conversation about the urgent humanitarian and security crisis down at our southern border. their refusal to come to the negotiating table has serious implications for the hundreds of thousands of federal workers going without pay and for all americans who deserve a nation that can secure its own border. along the way we've heard that the new funding of any sort -- any sort -- of border barrier, even the kinds that democrats have supported so